Best Practices for Project Manager Succession

Research Team 325 (RT-325) aimed to develop a general framework for succession planning for early to mid-level employees across the construction industry up to the level of Project Manager (PM), which is deemed to be one of the key positions of project delivery. The team conducted an extensive literature review on succession planning and surveyed 10 CII member companies on their current methodologies.

RT-325 focused on answering three key research questions:

1. Which practices are most effective for identifying and preparing mid-career and early career employees to assume leadership roles? 
2. Are there established practices in other industries that the project delivery industry can adopt that would meet a universal need? 
3. Are there proven practices that are most effective for specific sectors of our industry?

The initial research suggested that current industry practices are deficient in identifying which employees have a high potential of performing well in a project management position. In order to improve this area of succession planning, RT-325 surveyed 110 project employees in an effort to identify behavior and personality traits that correlate with a high performance and potential to perform in a project management position.

The results of this research are two-fold: first, as a product of the literature review and company interviews, the team developed a six-phase, 24-step process to improving succession planning with an organization (see Implementation Resource 325-2); and second, as a product of the employee survey, the team identified three interview questions that will improve early identification of high-potential employees (see Research Summary 325-1).